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Facebook Adds "Panic Button" for Terror-Stricken Teens

Paul Lilly
Jul 12, 2010

Page 1 of 10

At the behest of Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), Facebook has finally agreed to install a "panic button" application on its site, the social networking service announced today.

Once installed, UK teens will see the app on their homepage indicating "they are in control."

"By adding this application, Facebook users will have direct access to all the services that sit behind our ClickCEOP button which should provide reassurance to every parent with teenagers on the site," said Jim Gamble, chief executive of CEOP. "We know from speaking to offenders that a visible deterrent could protect young people online."

So-called panic buttons, which are already in use on social networking sites Bebo and MySpace, has been a feature Facebook previously felt it could do without. However, the site has been under near constant pressure from the UK following the murder of a teenage girl in 2009 from a Facebook member who posed as a young boy to lure her to her death.

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